LifeCare Chiropractic

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acid blocking drugs

Do Antacids Cause Allergies?

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DO ULCER DRUGS CONTRIBUTE TO ALLERGIES?

I’ve always had major issues with drugs that bring digestion to a screeching halt.  Now, if someone has a bleeding ulcer this class of drugs can save a life.  Short of that, stopping digestion is horrendously bad for your health.  I can tick off at least 10 processes that will be interrupted.  Any patient that’s been put on this class of drugs I suggest they go back and ask the prescribing doctor to give them at least 5 things that this drug will interfere with.  It is only proper that the doctor should KNOW what they are interfering with, right??  This animal study finds that giving acid blockers increases allergic response.  Why?  Because our GI tract, which is where 2/3 of our immune system is centered around, reacts primarily to proteins.  More proteins = more stuff to react to.  So what happens in a properly functioning stomach?  Most proteins are digested down to their constituent amino acids.  Not so with acid suppressive drugs.  Instead proteins are left to react to our immune system, and worse–left to go RANCID in the warm recesses of the intestinal tract!

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Did Your Doctor Tell You That You Make “Too Much Stomach Acid?”

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The body digests and does everything else.  In other words, digestion is absolutely critical to good health.  Period.  And this process hinges on stomach acid.

Without proper digestion, you open up a large Pandora’s box of problems because stomach acid has many different roles.  With this in mind, you can begin to see how both emotional stress as well as medications that block acid production (like Aciphex, Nexium, Prilosec) could ruin your health.

First, though, I do need to clarify that this class of drugs has its place.  If you’ve got a bleeding ulcer it’s not the time to discuss changing your diet and chewing your food better.  It’s time to protect the lining of the stomach from the acid so that it does not break open and spill your blood inside your abdominal cavity.  This can be fatal.  For everyone else, however, blocking stomach acid is a bad thing.

Ironically, very few people make too much stomach acid.  This is especially true as we age, where the region of the stomach begins to wear away with age, leaving up to 1/3 of seniors with achlorhydria (NO stomach acid production).  Thus, one would think that a senior citizen would be a very unlikely candidate for any type of drug that blocks acid production.

Just so you can get a better idea of what stomach acid does, here is a short list:

  1. Digestion of proteins
  2. Turns on other digestive enxymes (they are produced in an inactive state)
  3. Sterilizes everything so no bacteria or funguses make it past the stomach
  4. Helps to absorb certain critical nutrients like vitamin B12
  5. Turns on certain anti-cancer compounds in foods (like indole-3-carbinol in broccoli)
  6. Turns the stomach contents acidic.  This is critically important.  The pH of the stomach contents have to be more acidic than 5 ish in order for the pancreas to release secretin to neutralize the stomach contents.  If this does not happen (as with drugs) the rest of the GI tract has to deal with acid contents that are too strong for it, leading to long term damage.

This list is longer, but you get this idea.  It’s important.

As I mentioned, the average senior absolutely does not make enough stomach acid.  Certainly not enough to warrant medications that shut down acid production.  And yet, we still write those prescriptions.  Sometimes out of mere habit.

This practice is especially common when seniors end up in the hospital, and this practice has been increasing over the past few years.  But, given how much stomach acid does for our health, is this a good idea?

The answer turns out to be a no.

In this particular study, researchers looked at a group of seniors discharged from the hospital to see if being given a prescription for proton pump inhibitors had an effect on his or her likelihood of dying within a year.  Here’s what they found:

  1. Use of acid blocking drugs increased the risk of dying within a year by 51%.
  2. For those prescribed high-dose drugs, the risk skyrocketed to 259%.

The bottom line is that it is highly likely that shutting down acid production as you get older is a bad idea that will adversely affect your health and longevity.  Instead, consider a digestive enzyme, chewing your food slowly or a tablespoonful or two of apple cider vinegar to help your body do what it is supposed to do.

Heartburn or Prediabetes, Which Leads to Esophageal Cancer?

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There are times when it seems like every other patient coming into my office is on some type of acid blocker drug to treat their ulcer or heartburn.  Most have the mistaken belief that they make too much stomach acid.  Consider this: stress lowers stomach acid production and stomach acid production drops as we get older.  With these two factors alone, do you think there is anyone who makes too MUCH stomach acid these days?

The easy answer is no.  However, if someone has a bleeding ulcer, blocking the acid production will likely save his or her life.  Every other case is likely to do much more harm than good.  The list of problems associated with acid blocking drugs is quite long.  This should come as no surprise given that stomach acid is absolutely essential for a large number of critical processes in the human body (digestion, activation of other enzymes, sterilization of bacteria, activation of the pancreas, absorption of certain nutrients, activation of anti-cancer compounds, etc…).

The list includes:

The recommendation for acid blocker drugs in many times goes beyond symptom relief and more into the mistaken belief that acid blocking drugs will prevent the progression to Barrett’s esophagus and then to esophageal cancer.  As you can see from the study above, the opposite is true.  These drugs may actually increase the risk for the condition many doctors are trying to prevent.

This particular article adds weight to this, suggesting that prediabetes is as great of a risk factor, if not greater, for the development of Barrett’s esophagus than is reflux.  In some cases quadrupling the risk.  This means that the approach to managing any type of gastric issue, whether reflux, ulcer or gastritis needs to involve the whole spectrum of lifestyle changes to head the patient away from diabetes.  Shocking to hear me say this, but true.

The other thing to consider is that, most often, patients with heartburn actually make too LITTLE stomach acid.  Supporting digestion, using probiotics and improving the diet can go av very long way towards getting rid of reflux for good.